The End of the Affair

A disillusioned ex-pat friend of mine told me that she sees Paris as a beautiful glamourous ice princess like Catherine Deneuve or Carole Lombard with a blond chignon, big dark sunglasses, expensive jewelery, a trenchcoat and heels, who you're initially fascinated and seduced by and then when you get to know her, you realise there's nothing inside.

A little extreme, maybe. I'm sometimes (ok, often) disappointed in my Paris experience, too, but I also think that there are some very positive points about Paris-- the shallow ice queen probably still goes to amazing museum exhibits and the comedie francaise, takes classes at the louvre and has become more or less bilingual-- even if just seems to serve to show her how she will never feel truly at home in French culture because it's too different from the Anglophone world, this is still an important realisation.

Living in 2 languages-- or more like one and a half, since I spend most of my time teaching English and much less time socialising in French, we all end up collecting lots of little vocab/cultural differences. For example, when my expat friend mentioned that Paris seduced her, it makes me think that in French, you can use the verb seduire in a very casual way to mean something you like or something that impresses you. Like an effective tv commercial can seduce you. Or a cute baby can seduce everyone (I know, it sounds weird and incestuous). Or a student can seduce the jury. One of my students once told me this in English and I told him, no if you say you have to seduce the jury, it sounds like you will compliment the jury, bring them flowers, invite them to dinner and then take them back to your place. We generally are less figurative about seduction in English.

Paris still impresses, I guess in that sense I'm seduced, but not completely convinced or conquored, as they say in French. I don't always like her, but I'm not at the point where I'm about to move away. However, at the same time, there are probably other cities that would suit me better.

Living abroad makes an ordinarily introspective person about 10 times more so. To some extent this is probably good for you. Taken to an extreme, it's probably a waste of energy. I'm still trying to find a balance.

I imagine a more down to earth and friendlier city like Montreal would wear a ratty old ski jacket because what's important is that it keeps her warm not how she looks in it and she'd laugh loudly and smile a lot and maybe have messy hair instead of a perfect platinum knot a la Catherine Deneuve. But then again, I also don't really know what seduire means in Canadian French. Life might not necessarily be easier to negotiate there.